The mall was almost empty — just soft music, the smell of new clothes, and the sound of Marco's footsteps beside me.
He walked so close, his hand at the small of my back, like he was guarding me from the whole world.
"Pick whatever you want, sweetheart," he said, voice deep, eyes scanning the store instead of the clothes.
He wasn't here to shop.
He was here to protect.
I nodded nervously and picked up a simple dress.
"You like that?" he asked, stepping behind me, his breath warm on my neck.
"I… I don't know. It's too expensive."
"You're mine," he said softly. "Nothing is too expensive for what belongs to me."
My cheeks burned.
I didn't know if it was embarrassment, fear, or something I shouldn't be feeling.
I turned away to hide my face—
That's when I noticed it.
A reflection in the glass wall.
A man in black.
Another behind him.
And one at the exit.
My heart froze.
"Marco…" I whispered, grabbing his wrist.
"What is it, baby?" he asked, in that calm voice he only used on me.
"Someone's… watching us."
The change was instant.
Marco's entire body went stiff.
His eyes turned cold — dead cold.
He didn't even look around. He didn't need to.
He already sensed them.
"Stay close to me," he said, pulling me to his chest.
Then everything happened fast.
Three masked men stepped forward.
One raised a gun.
People started screaming.
"MARCO!" one of them shouted. "Hand over the girl and the child!"
Marco pushed me behind him so fast I almost fell.
"Over my dead body," he growled.
The man fired.
Marco grabbed me and threw both of us behind a display table.
Glass shattered.
People ran in every direction.
"Don't move from this spot," he said, lifting my chin so I would look at him.
His eyes… they weren't human anymore.
They were pure fury.
"But Marco—"
"ZARA," he snapped. "Look at me."
I did.
"You stay here. You hear me? No running. No talking. No crying. I'll kill every one of them before they touch you."
He touched my cheek.
Softly. Too softly for the monster he looked like.
"For you, I don't miss."
Then he stood and fired back.
Bodies dropped.
People screamed louder.
The mall echoed with gunshots so sharp my ears rang.
But I couldn't move.
I couldn't breathe.
I could only stare at him — the man who killed like a demon but kept looking back at me to make sure I was safe.
One attacker charged at me.
"MARCO!" I screamed.
Marco turned like lightning, grabbed the man by the throat, slammed him into a pillar, and shot him point-blank.
Then he came back to me, grabbing my face with both hands.
"Are you hurt? Did they touch you? LOOK AT ME, ZARA."
I shook my head.
He pulled me into his arms, hugging me so tight my breath hitched.
"You're safe. I swear on my life… you're safe."
Then he whispered, voice trembling for the first time:
"If anything happened to you… I'd burn this whole city to the ground."